South Wales, UK
James' Story
I was born on the 30th June 1988 and the first thing the midwife said to my mother was “he’s going to be a preacher one day” because I was lying down with my hands together in a prayer position!
I was raised in a Christian home and attended Sunday school from the very beginning. As a teenager, I came to realise that being surrounded by mature believers could not save me and that I needed to trust in Christ’s life, death and resurrection for myself. I soon developed a deep love for Him, His word and for fellowship with other believers. I was baptized at the age of 17 and I knew God had a call on my life.
At University I studied animation and excelled in all my practical assignments but somehow inside I knew that I could not pursue a career in animation when the things of eternity were so important. When I had completed my degree, I worked for a small animation company in Cardiff but as time went on the Lord was making it clear that He wanted me to enter full time ministry. I thought I would need to be equipped for this work, and so with the advice of my pastor, I enrolled on a two-year practical theology diploma course.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that in the scriptures, whenever the Lord prepares his servants for ministry, He first leads them through a period of testing and refining, sometimes referred to as ‘the wilderness’. For me, this experience happened over the next six years while serving in a christian mission organisation in England. It felt like every aspect of my life was being shakened, pruned, refined, challenged and realigned. It was as though even the very foundations of my faith were being tested and corrected by the Lord.
During this challenging season I met my future wife, Lucy, and together the Lord started
showing us His direction for our lives. He led us very clearly back to Wales. Without knowing exactly what He had in store, like Abraham and Sarah, we “obeyed and went” (Hebrews 11:8). It was only then that I realised I had returned a completely different person.
Lucy's Story
Hello! I am 30 years of age, married and currently have a baby on the way. I am originally from South Africa but I’m now living with my husband in his home land of Wales. I made the decision to become a follower of Christ at the age of 12 years old and was baptised in water. I started off with a great love for reading the word of God and I so enjoyed the new life Christ had won for me. However, my roots in Him had not been firmly established through discipleship and as I grew older I was no longer walking closely with Him.
I completed a two-year diploma in Health and Skincare, which led me to find work on cruise ships, traveling around the world. During my early 20’s the need to keep progressing and advancing myself in my career is what I deemed as living a successful life, but at the age of 25 years old I found myself greatly unfulfilled and with a tremendous feeling of emptiness. I remember crying out to God in my room saying, “There must be more to life than the life I am living right now”.
Eventually I ended up in the United Kingdom where I met my future husband, James, who along with his friends introduced me to a one-year Christian discipleship course. I knew God was calling me to come apart and spend time with Him, and that this was His answer to my desperate cry. As I prayed for a few months and contemplated resigning from my job, the Lord laid this scripture on my heart, which made me jolt with excitement: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter has passed, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land” Song of Songs 2:10-12.
What followed was an intense season of healing and restoration. The Lord was “restoring to me what the locusts had eaten” during my challenging childhood (Joel 2:25-27). I began to experience a sense of freedom that I now know God desires for every person who accepts His marvellous gift of grace. Looking back, it encourages me to know that when we humble ourselves and simply cry “HELP”, He is listening and can do great miracles in our lives!
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Joining Truth Planters
As time went on, we both developed a great love for serving and ministering to others. At the same time the Lord gave us many scriptures through various means, all confirming that the next season of our lives would involve planting, flowering and fruitbearing, but we had no idea how this would all unfold.
Soon after our wedding in 2019 God called us back to Wales. During this time our friends, David and Hannah Steele invited us to join them on one of their many European mission trips to experience what their ministry “Truth Planters” was all about.
The experience was very exciting. What impressed us the most was David’s emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and that we were not part of a man-made ministry. The sense of unity within the team was something we had seldom experienced before and we were seeing the embodiment of 1 John 4:12 which says, “if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”. While ministering to the people there, we both knew that this was what the Lord was calling us to.
In Febuary 2020, to our delight we found out that we were pregnant, but wondered whether this was a good time to leave our jobs and enter into full time mission work? Again, according to His faithfulness, God confirmed that we should “step out of the boat and on to the water”, trusting Him for our daily bread.
We had many confirmations along the way and on the 1st of April 2020, we entered into full time ministry and joined Truth Planters as their UK representatives. All this took place a week before our first wedding anniversary, and are now being led step by step in all that he has planned for us here in the UK.
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